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138-508: The penal code is one part of the Brazilian criminal justice system. The National Congress passes laws to define what acts are considered criminal; this becomes part of the penal code. The Congress also codifies the procedures for implementing the penal code. Three national police forces and multiple state-level police forces work to prevent and combat crime and hold alleged perpetrators for prosecution. The judiciary , including 92 courts at

276-550: A distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, and shells, for slaves. This comprised what is now known as the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period. Merchants during the sugar age were crucial to the economic development of the colony, the link between the sugar production areas, coastal Portuguese cities, and Europe. Merchants in the early came from many nations, including Germans, Flemings, and Italians, but Portuguese merchants came to dominate

414-509: A few months before Cabral landed, Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón came to the northeastern coast of Brazil and deployed many armed men ashore with no means of communicating with the indigenous people. One of his ships and captains was captured by indigenous people and eight of his men were killed. Cabral no doubt learned from this to treat communication with the utmost priority. Cabral left two degredados (criminal exiles) in Brazil to learn

552-480: A great influence on the developing nation. The huge, unknown and hostile environment led to slow development of legal practices due to the distance of the motherland, and generally lacked legitimacy from initial discovery to declaration of the kingdom in 1815, and the republic in 1822. Civil law came to Brazil with the Empire of Brazil. Originally a plantation economy , Brazil abolished slavery in several stages during

690-642: A key center of the global cocaine trafficking trade. Prison-based gangs such as the First Capital Command ( Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) and the Red Command ( Comando Vermelho – CV) have expanded from Nationwide and are heavily involved in international drug and armstrafficking. Militias form another pole for violent crime and are made up chiefly of police officers, current and former. They hold sway over whole neighborhoods, committing extortion and extrajudicial killings. The Ministry of Justice

828-510: A kind of parasitic economy where proximity to settled areas were usually prerequisites for their long-term success. Unlike the palenque in Spanish America or maroon settlements in the West Indies , Portuguese officials rebuked any kind of agreements to standardize the quilombos out of the fear of drawing even more fugitive slaves to their communities. The largest of the quilombos was

966-542: A large black slave population working on sugar plantations and mines. The boom and bust of the economic cycles were linked to export products. Brazil's sugar age, with the development of plantation slavery, merchants serving as middle men between production sites, Brazilian ports, and Europe was undermined by the growth of the sugar industry in the Caribbean on islands that European powers seized from Spain. Gold and diamonds were discovered and mined in southern Brazil through

1104-412: A large fleet led by Tomé de Sousa set sail to Brazil to establish a central government in the colony. Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil, brought detailed instructions, prepared by the king's aides, about how to administer and foster the development of the colony. His first act was the foundation of the capital city, Salvador , in northeastern Brazil, in today's state of Bahia . The city

1242-419: A larger set of defenses against slave uprisings that had been orchestrated by cities and towns. At the same time, some Amerindians resisted the colonizers’ efforts to prevent uprisings by surreptitiously incorporating into their villages those who had escaped slavery. Many of the details surrounding the inner political and social structure of the quilombos remain a mystery, and the information available today

1380-526: A new constitution was enacted under President Getúlio Vargas . This was followed by the creation of a new penal code, the one currently in use, on December 7, 1940. After the end of the Vargas Era in 1945–46, a new constitution was created, but the Penal Code of 1940 was not abolished. There was an unsuccessful attempt to replace it with a new one in 1969, during the military government . An extensive reform of

1518-653: A nzumbi "was the priest responsible for the spiritual defense of the community." The Dutch and later the Portuguese attempted several times to conquer Palmares, until an army led by famed São Paulo-born Domingos Jorge Velho managed to destroy the great quilombo and kill Zumbi in 1695. Brazilian feature film director Carlos Diegues made a film about Palmares called simply Quilombo . Of the many quilombos that once existed in Brazil, some have survived to this day as isolated rural communities. Portuguese colonists sought to destroy these fugitive communities because they threatened

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1656-517: A role in colonial Brazil. Their "importance in the colonial may be one explanation why the Inquisition was not permanently established in Brazil during the Iberian Union ." New Christians were well integrated into institutional life, serving in civil as well as ecclesiastical offices. The relative lack of persecution and abundance of opportunity allowed them to have a significant place in society. With

1794-687: A sedentary farming lifestyle. The Jesuits had frequent disputes with other colonists who wanted to enslave the natives, but also with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church itself. Following the creation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of São Salvador da Bahia by the Pope, Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha arrived in Bahia in 1552 and took issue with the Jesuit mission led by Manoel da Nóbrega. Sardinha opposed

1932-563: A spiritualist past they rejected, and moving towards a goal of ensuring social order, which is part of the motto on the Republican flag . The Republic's first piece of business was the Criminal code of 1890 ; the Constitution itself was only written the following year. The integration of positivist criminology by Brazilian legal culture took place gradually, centering around legal scholars in

2070-442: A symptom of the inborn nature of a criminal, who therefore needed to be treated and not punished. The field of law was encroached upon by biology. The "scientific" development of the idea of "degenerate individuals" veered away from actual study of the criminal element, and towards a means of governing. "Normal" individuals (i.e., white men, employed, civilized per European standards) viewed other types as deviants from normality and

2208-465: A threat to the social order. All of these ideas and theories and attitudes and methods of dealing with them arrived in Brazil from Europe in the nineteenth century, especially after 1870. The new ideas from the positivist school mixed with earlier liberal views from the classical school, and were well received by Brazilian jurists, being viewed as the latest advances from Europe, and resulted in various legal and institutional changes in Brazil, especially in

2346-627: A while to fully adopt its tenets. Vieira's debates with João Baptista Pereira, author of the republican code and professor of criminal law at the Rio law school was a microcosm of the debate between proponents of the classical and positivist schools in Brazil for the duration of the First Republic. These, in turn, were a reflection of debate on this topic going on in Europe, mostly in Italy, between these schools. Vieira

2484-531: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Brazilian criminal justice Recent elections The Brazilian criminal justice system comes from the civil law of Western Europe, in particular Portuguese law , which derives from Roman law . The earliest legal documents in Brazil were land grants and charters dating to the early 16th century , which continued to be used until independence in 1822 . Various basic principles of law are enshrined in

2622-418: Is also mandatory that a Prosecutor to be part of litigation related to underage minors. Although the law allows prosecutors to conduct criminal investigations, they only do so in major cases, usually where there has been wrongdoing involving the police or public officials. They are also in charge of supervising police work and police investigations. The power prosecutors have to conduct criminal investigations

2760-585: Is controversial and, although judges, prosecutors and the general population favor it generally, it is being contested before the Supreme Federal Court. Federal Prosecution Office (MPF) database, the Car Wash investigation resulted in 361 convictions at first instance and billions of dollars in fines and financial settlements with companies involved. According to the Principles of criminal law in Brazil in

2898-404: Is debated whether previous Portuguese explorers had already been in Brazil, this date is widely and politically accepted as the day of the discovery of Brazil by Europeans. The place where Álvares Cabral arrived is now known as Porto Seguro , in northeastern Brazil . Cabral was leading a large fleet of 13 ships and more than 1,000 men following Vasco da Gama 's way to India, around Africa. Cabral

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3036-796: Is limited by the fact that it usually comes from colonial accounts of their destruction. More is known about the Quilombo dos Palmares because it was "the longest-lived and largest fugitive community" in Colonial Brazil. Like any polity, Palmares and other quilombos changed over time. Quilombos drew on both African and European influences, often emulating the realities of colonial society in Brazil. In Palmares, slavery, which also existed in Africa, continued. Quilombos , like plantations, were most likely composed of people from different African groups. Religious syncretism, combining African and Christian elements,

3174-424: Is their duty to bring criminal charges and try criminal cases, but also to request acquittal of charges if during a trial they become convinced of a defendant's innocence. Prosecutors have the last word on whether criminal charges are filed, except in those rare cases in which Brazilian law permits civil prosecution. In those cases, the prosecutor acts as custos legis and ensures that justice is indeed delivered. It

3312-598: The 1988 Constitution , such as the principle of legality and the principle of human dignity . Various institutions work together to implement the criminal justice system, including the National Congress , which passes laws to define what acts are considered criminal in the Penal Code and codifies the criminal procedures for implementing them; three national and multiple state-level police forces to prevent and combat crime and hold alleged perpetrators for prosecution;

3450-592: The 1988 constitution which defines a tripartite separation of powers into the legislative , executive , and judicial branches of government. Aside from those, the country also has the Public Ministry which acts autonomously and has in the past been referred to as the country's fourth branch. Article 92 of the Constitution divides the judiciary into nine organs: four individual superior courts (STF, STJ, TST, CNJ), four types of courts and judges (federal regional, labor, electoral, military), and courts and judges at

3588-605: The Brazilian Constitution defines the jurisdiction of the Federal Regional Courts. They have a varied composition, but the number of judges is defined by law. One fifth are chosen by lawyers with 10 years experience or more, as well as by members of the Public Prosecutor's Office , also known as the "Federal Public Ministry" ( Ministério Público Federal ) with ten years experience or more. The rest of

3726-550: The Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence of the count John Maurice of Nassau as governor (1637–1644) in Recife (renamed Mauritstaad ). Nassau invited scientific commissions to research the local flora and fauna, resulting in added knowledge of the territory. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Remnants survive into

3864-501: The Quilombo dos Palmares , located in today's Alagoas state, which grew to many thousands during the disruption of Portuguese rule with the Dutch incursion. Palmares was governed by leaders Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi . The terminology for the settlements and leaders come directly from Angola, with quilombo, an Angolan word for military villages of diverse settlers, and the nganga

4002-537: The Tupi language was compiled by Joseph of Anchieta and printed in Coimbra in 1595. The Jesuits often gathered the aborigines into communities of resettlement called aldeias , similar in intent to the reductions implemented by Francisco de Toledo in southern Peru during the 1560s. where the natives worked for the community and were evangelized. Founded in the aftermath of the campaign undertaken by Mem de Sá from 1557 to force

4140-458: The aldeias by colonists eager to steal laborers for themselves thus causing natives to flee the settlements. The aldeia model would again be used, though also unsuccessfully, by the Governor of the captaincy of São Paulo, Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão  [ pt ] , in 1765, in order to encourage mestizos , natives, and mulattoes to abandon slash-and-burn agriculture and adopt

4278-506: The judiciary , including 92 courts at the federal and state levels, to interpret the codes, and hear prosecutions and judge perpetrators; and a correctional system to punish and rehabilitate convicted criminals . The workings of the criminal justice system have had many changes, reflecting Brazil's history of colonialism , Empire , Republics , military dictatorship , and democracy , and of persistent, endemic corruption and scandals . There have been attempts to rein in corruption: in

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4416-629: The superior federal prosecutors ( Subprocuradores Gerais da República ). The Prosecutor General (Procurador Geral da República) heads the federal body and brings cases before the Supreme Federal Court , which handles final judicial reviews and criminal offenses committed by federal legislators, members of the cabinet , and the President of Brazil . At the state level, the body usually has three divisions: deputy state prosecutors ( Promotores de Justiça Substitutos ); state prosecutors before

4554-401: The 1880s in the context of legal and scientific discourse on criminality and deviance which attempted to understand the question, "what makes a man become a criminal?". In Brazil, these currents emerged during the First Republic, which was a period of intense political, economic, and social upheaval. The Republic was proclaimed in 1889, the economy was being transformed by capitalism, and society

4692-607: The 19th century. During the colonial period, the system of law consisted of Royal Ordinances: the Alfonsine Ordinances ( Ordenações Afonsinas ) from 1446, which drew heavily from Roman law, the Phillipine Ordinances ( Ordenações Filipinas ) from 1603, and the Manueline Ordinances of 1512. The Alfonsine Ordinances are unique in being the first norms produced in the way modern codes are. The Manueline

4830-401: The 2010s, Operation Car Wash a investigation into corruption within the government which lasted eight years. The investigation extended to multiple foreign countries , and resulted in a thousand indictments, half a billion dollars in fines, affected three former presidents, and imprisoned one. Rates of crime in Brazil are elevated. Brazil ranks high amongst the most number of homicides in

4968-527: The Americas. For example, the Brazilian colony was at first thought of as a commercial asset that would facilitate trade between the Portuguese and India and not a place to be settled to develop a society. The social model of conquest in Brazil was one geared toward commerce and entrepreneurial ideals rather than conquest as was the case in the Spanish realm. As time progressed, the Portuguese crown found that having

5106-450: The Code was proposed in 1973 and successively postponed until it was revoked in 1978. Another commission to overhaul the Code was formed in 1980. The reform finally took place in 1984, one year before the end of the military government. Recent modifications include a redefinition of "sexual crimes" in 2009, and the inclusion of feminicide in 2015. This article relating to the law of Brazil

5244-710: The Constitution, everyone has the right to a defense, and the state will provide one if the accused cannot afford one. The Office of the Federal Public Defender is the autonomous body that ensures this right. In Brazil, the duties of the judicial police are the responsibility of the Civil Police of the States and the Federal District and the Federal Police , in accordance with paragraphs 4 and 1 of article 144 of

5382-551: The Constitution. The function of the Judicial Police dates back to 1619, when the alcaides , carrying out their activities in the towns of the Colony, carried out measures to arrest evildoers, always accompanied by a clerk who would draw up a report of what had happened for later presentation to the magistrate. Later, the figure of the "criminal minister" ( ministro criminal or meirinho ) emerged, who in his districts mixed

5520-470: The Crown not having a strong administrative hold due to Brazil's reliance on its exportation economy. Pernambuco, the most successful captaincy, belonged to Duarte Coelho , who founded the city of Olinda in 1536. His captaincy prospered with engenhos , sugarcane mills, installed after 1542 producing sugar. Sugar was a very valuable good in Europe, and its production became the main Brazilian colonial product for

5658-515: The Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe ( Dutch Brazil ), without, however, penetrating the interior. The large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went. Ironically, the result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was a higher price of sugar in Amsterdam . During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of

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5796-561: The Empire determined that any offense or voluntary omission to the Code was to be considered a crime. The Criminal Code of 1830 was in force during the Empire. After the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, a new penal code was created on October 11, 1890, followed by a new constitution in 1891. This penal code was in effect during the First Republic and most of the Vargas Era. In 1934,

5934-517: The French were again expelled from São Luís by the Portuguese. Since the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe. Tobacco and cotton and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century. The first sugarcane farms were established in

6072-613: The Iberian Union (1580–1640), many migrated to Spanish America. In 1580, a succession crisis led to the union of Portugal and Spain being ruled by the Habsburg king Philip II . The unification of the crowns of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the Iberian Union, lasted until 1640 when the Portuguese revolted. During the union the institutions of both kingdoms remained separate. For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were Christian converts from Judaism ("New Christians") or their descendants,

6210-519: The Jesuit mission at São Vicente in late 1552 to return only at the conclusion of the Sardinha's tenure. The action of the Jesuits saved many natives from slavery , but also disturbed their ancestral way of life and inadvertently helped spread infectious diseases against which the aborigines had no natural defenses. Slave labour and trade were essential for the economy of Brazil and other American colonies, and

6348-464: The Jesuits taking part in indigenous dances and playing indigenous instruments since he viewed these activities had little effect on conversion. The use of interpreters at confession by the Jesuits was also railed against by Sardinha who opposed the appropriation of indigenous culture for evangelization. Sardinha also challenged the Jesuit prohibition on waging war against and enslaving the indigenous population, eventually forcing Nóbrega to leave Bahia for

6486-701: The Jesuits usually did not object to the enslavement of African people. The potential riches of tropical Brazil led the French, who did not recognize the Tordesillas Treaty that divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, to attempt to colonize parts of Brazil. In 1555, the Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon founded a settlement within Guanabara Bay , in an island in front of today's Rio de Janeiro. The colony, named France Antarctique , led to conflict with Governor General Mem de Sá, who waged war against

6624-573: The Portuguese Crown's point of view, its realm was expanded with relatively little cost to itself. On the Atlantic islands of the Azores , Madeira , and São Tomé , the Portuguese began plantation production of sugarcane using forced labor, a precedent for Brazil's sugar production in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Portuguese discovery of Brazil was preceded by a series of treaties between

6762-434: The Portuguese crown from the high costs of colonization. The captaincies granted control over large areas of land and all that resided upon it. Furthermore, the splitting of land highlights the economic importance a large amount of land would have for red-dye producing trees and sugar plantations. Thus, between 1534 and 1536 king John III divided the land into 15 captaincy colonies, which were given to those who wanted and had

6900-423: The Portuguese expel the French from a colony they had established at present-day Rio de Janeiro . The first attempt to colonize Brazil followed the system of hereditary captaincies ( Capitanias Hereditárias ), which had previously been used successfully in the colonization of Madeira. These captaincies were granted by royal decree to private owners, namely to merchants, soldiers, sailors, and petty nobility, saving

7038-591: The Portuguese frequently relied on the help of Europeans who lived together with the indigenous people and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these were João Ramalho , who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo , and Diogo Álvares Correia, who acquired the name Caramuru , who lived among the Tupinambá natives near today's Salvador. Over time, the Portuguese realized that some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to

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7176-502: The Portuguese monarchy beginning to move from a crusading and looting-centric attitude, to a trade-centric attitude when approaching new lands. The latter attitude required communication and cooperation with indigenous people, thus, interpreters. This informed Cabral's actions in Brazil. As Cabral realized that no one in his convoy spoke the language of the indigenous people in Brazil, he took every effort to avoid violence and conflict and used music and humor as forms of communication. Just

7314-419: The Portuguese. By 1580, as many as 40,000 natives could have been taken from the interior to toil as slaves on Brazil's interior, and this enslavement of indigenous people continued right throughout the colonial period. The period of sugar-based economy (1530 – c. 1700) is known as the sugar cycle in Brazil. The development of the sugar complex occurred over time, with a variety of models. The dependencies of

7452-489: The TJM are defined in the state constitutions, but some are common and exclusive to them, such as prosecuting and judging. The Public Prosecutor's Office ( Portuguese : Ministério Público , lit. "Public Ministry", often abbreviated "MP") is the Brazilian body of independent public prosecutors at both the federal ( Ministério Público da União ) and state level ( Ministério Público Estadual ). It operates independently from

7590-499: The area of punishment, and control. Brazil already had a mature legal culture, and the reception of European criminology happened during a time of profound social and political changes from the end of slavery to consolidation of the republic. There was an atmosphere of openness and inclusion of new ideas, such as by the School of Recife . This paved the way for the acceptance of positivist criminology, with its air of modernity and free from

7728-472: The arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 did not have any developed indigenous cultures with institutions of their own, such as Mayas, Incas or Aztecs elsewhere. It was also very different from Spanish or English colonization, as Brazil was a vast and very sparsely populated region. Also, Portugal was busy with African and Asian colonies, before looking toward Brazil around 1530. In 1548, the General Government

7866-845: The capital of the State of Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. In 1775 all Brazilian States (Brasil, Maranhão and Grão-Pará) were unified into the Viceroyalty of Brazil , with Rio de Janeiro as capital, and the title of the king's representative was officially changed to that of Viceroy of Brazil. As in Portugal, each colonial village and city had a city council ( câmara municipal ), whose members were prominent figures of colonial society (land owners, merchants, slave traders). Colonial city councils were responsible for regulating commerce, public infrastructure, professional artisans, prisons etc. Tomé de Sousa, first Governor General of Brazil, brought

8004-487: The coast of Africa on the way. They sought sources of gold, ivory, and African slaves, high value goods in the African trade. The Portuguese set up fortified trading feitorias (factories), whereby permanent, fairly small commercial settlements anchored trade in a region. The initial costs of setting up these commercial posts was borne by private investors, who in turn received hereditary titles and commercial advantages. From

8142-469: The coast: they sacked Salvador in 1604, from which they removed large amounts of gold and silver before a joint Spanish-Portuguese fleet recaptured the town. The city was captured again by the Dutch in May 1624 before being surrendered to a Luso-Spanish armada 11 months later. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda. With the capture of Paraíba in 1635,

8280-455: The coastal native population and the declaration of king Sebastian I 's 1570 law which proclaimed the liberty of Brazilian natives, the enslavement of indigenous people increased after 1570. A new slave trade emerged where indigenous people were brought from the sertões or "inland wilderness frontiers" by mixed-race mameluco under the loophole in the 1570 law that they were captured in just wars against native groups who "customarily" attacked

8418-470: The colony in 1560. Estácio de Sá, nephew of the Governor, founded Rio de Janeiro in 1565 and managed to expel the last French settlers in 1567. Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and Joseph of Anchieta were instrumental in the Portuguese victory by pacifying the natives who supported the French. Another French colony, France Équinoxiale , was founded in 1612 in present-day São Luís , in the North of Brazil. In 1614

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8556-423: The colony serve as a trading post was not ideal for regulating land claims in the Americas, so it decided that the best way to keep control of their land was to settle it. Thus, the land was divided into fifteen private, hereditary captaincies , the most successful of which being Pernambuco and São Vicente . Pernambuco succeeded by growing sugarcane. São Vicente prospered by enslaving indigenous native people from

8694-527: The course of a few years and replace them with newly imported enslaved people. Areas where manioc , a subsistence crop, was cultivated also utilized high numbers of enslaved peoples. In these areas, 40 to 60 percent of the population was enslaved. These regions were characterized by fewer work demands and better living and working conditions for enslaved peoples as compared to labor conditions for enslaved populations in sugar regions. The Portuguese attempted to severely restrict colonial trade, meaning that Brazil

8832-835: The court was the National Labor Council, created in 1923, which was a part of the executive branch, subordinated to the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. The Regional Federal Courts (in Portuguese, Tribunais Regionais Federais , commonly called TRFs) are the courts of appeal in the Federal Courts of Brazil , the second instance courts of the Brazilian federal justice system, responsible not only for appeals of trial court decisions, but also for writs of security , habeas corpus , and habeas data against acts by federal judges, motions to set aside judgments, criminal revisions, and conflicts of jurisdiction. Article 108 of

8970-400: The dangerous classes and criminality would take over society was common. This impeded progress, and to stop it, science would analyze it and provide possible cures. Degeneration became an umbrella term for numerous categories of people, spanning criminals, prostitutes, the insane, and other forms of deviance , and could be countered by the emerging field of criminology, whose object of study was

9108-460: The defeat of the French colonists of France Antarctique by managing to pacify the Tamoio natives, who had previously fought the Portuguese. The Jesuits took part in the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565. The success of the Jesuits in converting the indigenous people to Catholicism is linked to their capacity to understand the native culture, especially the language. The first grammar of

9246-409: The defense against pirates. Only São Paulo was an important inland city. Unlike the network of towns and cities that developed in most areas of Spanish America, the coastal cities and their hinterlands were oriented toward Portugal directly with little connection otherwise. With sugar as the major export commodity in the early period and the necessity to process cane into exportable refined sugar on-site,

9384-430: The definition of the offense ( German : Tatbestand ; tipo in Portuguese and Spanish); wrongfulness or unlawfulness; and culpability or blameworthiness ( mens rea ). This allows criminal defense lawyers to find a particular action as unlawful but not culpable, and since all three must be present in order to find a defendant guilty, that is sufficient for acquittal. Due process of law ( devido processo legal )

9522-432: The deviant and attempted to understand the causes, in order to be able to protect society, and to support progress by reducing or controlling degeneration. Cesare Lombroso combined many of these threads and analyzed theories about criminiality from a medical perspective, essentially creating a "criminal profile" of someone who is born a criminal. This led to a conception of criminal anthropology by doctors who viewed crime as

9660-412: The economic and social order of the slave regime in Brazil. There was a constant fear among colonists that enslaved peoples would revolt and resist slavery. Two settler objectives were to discourage enslaved peoples from trying to escape and to close down their options for escape. Strategies used by Portuguese colonists to prevent enslaved people from fleeing included apprehending escapees before they had

9798-456: The end of the colonial era. Brazilian cities were largely port cities and the colonial administrative capital was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in response to the rise and fall of export products' importance. Unlike Spanish America, which fragmented into many republics upon independence , Brazil remained a single administrative unit under a monarch as the Empire of Brazil , giving rise to

9936-731: The enslavement of indigenous people continued. The Portuguese had established several commercial facilities in West Africa , where West African slaves were bought from African slave traders. The enslaved West Africans were then sent via slave ships to Brazil, chained and in crowded conditions. Enslaved West Africans were more desirable and practical because many came from sedentary, agriculture-based societies and did not require as much training in how to farm as did members of Amerindian societies, which tended to not be primarily agricultural. Africans were also less vulnerable to disease than Amerindians were. The importation of enslaved Africans into Brazil

10074-536: The farm included a casa-grande (big house) where the owner of the farm lived with his family, and the senzala , where the slaves were kept. A notable early study of this complex is by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre . This arrangement was depicted in engravings and paintings by Frans Post as a feature of an apparently harmonious society. Initially, the Portuguese relied on enslaved Amerindians to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing enslaved Africans from West Africa, though

10212-428: The federal and state levels interpret the codes and hear prosecutions and judge perpetrators; the correctional system oversees punishment and rehabilitatation of convicted criminals. The whole system hinges on the penal code, which is the starting point. The first penal law in independent Brazil was the imperial Criminal Code of 1830, issued on December 16, 1830 and approved by Emperor Pedro I . The General Assembly of

10350-421: The first and only channels of interaction between all of the world's continents, thus beginning the process of globalization . In addition to the imperial and economic undertaking of discovery and colonization of lands distant from Europe, these years were filled with pronounced advancements in cartography , shipbuilding and navigational instruments , of which the Portuguese explorers took advantage. In 1494,

10488-465: The first group of Jesuits to the colony. More than any other religious order, the Jesuits represented the spiritual side of the enterprise and were destined to play a central role in the colonial history of Brazil. The spreading of the Catholic faith was an important justification for the Portuguese conquests, and the Jesuits were officially supported by the king, who instructed Tomé de Sousa to give them all

10626-489: The first of which were created following an agreement between the federal government and the states to reorganize the military police and state military courts in 1936. With the 1988 constitution and the reaffirmation of the military status of the fire departments of the states and the Federal District, the members of these institutions are also subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of Military Justice (TJM). The main functions of

10764-477: The indigenous people and severe disputes with other colonizers and the bishop. Wars against the natives around Salvador consumed much of his government. The fact that the first bishop of Brazil, Pero Fernandes Sardinha , was killed and eaten by the Caeté natives after a shipwreck in 1556 illustrates how strained the situation was between the Portuguese and many indigenous communities. The third Governor-General of Brazil

10902-533: The judges are appointed through the promotion of federal judges with over five years experience, by longest service time and by merit, alternately. The highest court of a state judicial system is its court of second instance, the Courts of Justice. In each Brazilian state there is one Court of Justice ( Tribunal de Justiça in Portuguese). Courts of Justice are courts of appeal, meaning they can review any decisions taken by

11040-593: The kings of Portugal and Castile , following Portuguese sailings down the coast of Africa to India and the voyages to the Caribbean of the Genoese mariner sailing for Castile, Christopher Columbus . The most decisive of these treaties was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, which created the Tordesillas Meridian, dividing the world between the two kingdoms. All land discovered or to be discovered east of that meridian

11178-412: The land to extract brazilwood. Worried about foreign incursions and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and fight the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived in Brazil to patrol the entire coast, expel the French, and create the first colonial villages like São Vicente on the coast. Because Brazil

11316-452: The land. The other thirteen captaincies failed, leading the king to make colonization a royal effort rather than a private one. In 1549, Tomé de Sousa sailed to Brazil to establish a central government. He brought along Jesuit priests, who set up missions , forbidding natives to express their own cultures, and converting many to Catholicism. The Jesuits' work to dominate the indigenous native’s cultural expression and way of living helped

11454-546: The largest country in Latin America. Just as Spanish and Roman Catholicism were a core source of cohesion among Spain's vast and multi-ethnic territories, Brazilian society was united by the Portuguese language and Roman Catholicism. As the only Lusophone polity in the Americas, the Portuguese language was - and remains - particularly important to Brazilian identity. Portugal pioneered the European charting of sea routes that were

11592-536: The longest of any country in the Americas. African slaves had a higher monetary value than indigenous slaves largely because many of them came from agricultural societies and thus were already familiar with the work needed to maintain the profitable sugar plantations of Brazil. Also, African slaves were already immune to several of the Old World diseases that killed many indigenous people and were less likely to flee, as compared to indigenous slaves, since their place of origin

11730-402: The lower courts ( Promotores de Justiça Titulares ); and appellate state prosecutors ( Procuradores de Justiça ). There are also military prosecutors ( promotores militares ) whose duties are related to State Military Police Corps and Military Firefighter Corps. The Office is part of the Brazilian criminal justice system , whose task is to uphold justice. The main job of prosecutors

11868-432: The main economic activities of the territory were based first on brazilwood extraction (brazilwood cycle), which gave the territory its name; sugar production ( sugar cycle ); and finally on gold and diamond mining ( gold cycle ). Slaves, especially those brought from Africa , provided most of the workforce of the Brazilian export economy after a brief initial period of Indigenous slavery to cut brazilwood. In contrast to

12006-402: The means to administer and explore them. The captains were granted ample powers to administer and profit from their possessions. From the 15 original captaincies, only two, Pernambuco and São Vicente, prospered. The failure of most captaincies was related to the resistance of the indigenous native people, shipwrecks and internal disputes between the colonizers. . Failure can also be attributed to

12144-411: The mid-16th century and were the key for the success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. Initially, the Portuguese attempted to utilize Indian slaves for sugar cultivation, but shifted to the use of black African slave labor. While the availability of Amerindians did decrease due to epidemics afflicting

12282-422: The modern era. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch finally withdrew in 1654; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Few Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remain, but Albert Eckhout 's paintings of amerindians and slaves, as well as his still lifes are important works of baroque art. Unlike neighboring Spanish America, Brazil was a slave society from its outset. The African slave trade

12420-418: The most common forms of resistance involved engaging in sluggishness and sabotage . Other ways these enslaved peoples resisted was by exacting violence upon themselves and their babies, often to the point of death, and by seeking revenge against their masters. Another type of resistance to slavery was flight and, with the dense vegetation of the tropics, runaway slaves fled in numbers and for slave owners, this

12558-527: The native languages and to serve as interpreters in the future. The practice of leaving degredados in new lands to serve as interpreters came straight from the colonization of the islands off of the West African coast 80 years before Cabral landed in Brazil. After Cabral's voyage, the Portuguese focused their efforts on their possessions in Africa and India and showed little interest in Brazil. Between 1500 and 1530, relatively few Portuguese expeditions came to

12696-454: The neighboring Spanish possessions , which had several viceroyalties with jurisdiction initially over New Spain (Mexico) and Peru , and in the eighteenth century expanded with the viceroyalties of the Río de la Plata (Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia) and New Granada (Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and Guyana), the colony of Brazil was settled mainly in the coastal area by the Portuguese and

12834-528: The new Constitution created the Federal Court of Accounts ( Tribunal de Contas da União ), which is also autonomous in its functions. There are three levels of public prosecutors, according to the jurisdiction of the courts before which they perform their duties. There are the federal prosecutors ( procuradores da República ) who bring cases before judges in lower courts; the appellate federal prosecutors ( Procuradores Regionais da República ); and

12972-422: The new land to chart the coast and to obtain brazilwood. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable red dye to luxury textiles. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who initially worked in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives and axes. In this early stage of the colonization of Brazil, and also later,

13110-419: The next 150 years. The captaincy of São Vicente, owned by Martim Afonso de Sousa, also produced sugar but its main economic activity was capturing indigenous native people to trade them as slaves. With the failure of most captaincies and the menacing presence of French ships along the Brazilian coast, the government of king John III decided to turn the colonization of Brazil back into a royal enterprise. In 1549,

13248-477: The opportunity to band together. Slave catchers mounted expeditions with the intent to destroy fugitive communities. These expeditions destroyed mocambos and either killed or re-enslaved inhabitants These expeditions were conducted by soldiers and mercenaries, many of whom were supported by local people or by the government's military. As a result, many fugitive communities were heavily fortified. Amerindians were sometimes utilized as ‘slave catchers’ or as part of

13386-486: The prestige of the Republican code through links to the venerated Roman code. The German, tripartite system of criminal theory underlies the theory of crime in Brazil, as well as in all Latin American countries. English-speaking common law systems are based on the simpler, bipartite system of criminal theory. The central thesis is that a criminal offense is based on two elements: the actus reus , or external action in

13524-424: The presumption of innocence (Art. 5 LVII); compensation for wrongful conviction (Art. 5 LXXV); protection from arrest except per judicial warrant or when caught in the act (Art. 5 LXI); release on recognizance (Art. 5 LXVI); right to remain silent and to have a lawyer (Art. 5 XII); and the right to a speedy trial (Art. 5 LXXVIII). Brazil's numerous ports and its borders with many South American countries makes it

13662-403: The roles of judge and police officer, keeping the peace, carrying out investigations, and ordering the arrest of criminals. Colonial Brazil Colonial Brazil ( Portuguese : Brasil Colonial ) comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese , until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal . During the 300 years of Brazilian colonial history,

13800-470: The second instance structure. According to law, the regional courts are responsible for control and inspection of the whole electoral process in their jurisdiction, from the registration of regional branches of political parties, to the production of reports and electoral maps during vote counting. Currently, three states have Military Justice Courts: the São Paulo , Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul ,

13938-682: The sites of institutional life of church and state, as well as urban groups of merchants. Unlike many areas of Spanish America, there was no dense, sedentary indigenous population which had already created settlements, but cities and towns in Brazil were similar to those in Spanish Colonial Venezuela . Port cities allowed Portuguese trade goods to enter, including African slaves, and export goods of sugar and later gold and coffee to be exported to Portugal and beyond. Coastal cities of Olinda (founded 1537), Salvador (1549), Santos (1545), Vitória (1551), and Rio de Janeiro (1565) were also vital in

14076-682: The state level, including the Federal District and the territories. Article 92 of the Constitution named five superior courts. They are: the Supreme Federal Court , the Superior Court of Justice , the Superior Labor Court , the Superior Electoral Court , and the Superior Military Court . Magistrates who make up these courts are called ministers. The Supreme Federal Court is the constitutional court of Brazil. An attempt

14214-562: The states of Brasil , with Salvador as capital, and Maranhão , with its capital in São Luís . The state of Maranhão was still further divided in 1737 into the Maranhão e Piauí and Grão-Pará e Rio Negro , with its capital in Belém do Pará . Each state had its own Governor. After 1640, the governors of Brazil coming from the high nobility started to use the title of Vice-rei ( Viceroy ). In 1763

14352-432: The submission of Salvadoran natives, the aldeias marked the transition of Jesuit policy from conversion by persuasion alone to the acceptance of force as a means of organizing natives with a means to then evangelizing them. Nevertheless, these aldeias were unattractive to the natives due to the introduction of epidemic diseases to the communities, the forced settlement of aldeia natives elsewhere to labor, and raiding of

14490-403: The sugar engenhos had resident artisans and barber-surgeons, and functioned in some ways as small towns. Also unlike most Spanish settlements, Brazilian cities and towns did not have a uniform lay-out of central plaza and a check board pattern of streets, often because the topography defeated such an orderly layout. Converted Jews, so-called New Christians , many of whom were merchants, played

14628-474: The support needed to Christianise the indigenous people. The first Jesuits, guided by Father Manuel da Nóbrega and including prominent figures like Juan de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes and later Joseph of Anchieta , established the first Jesuit missions in Salvador and in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga , the settlement that gave rise to the city of São Paulo . Nóbrega and Anchieta were instrumental in

14766-602: The three branches of government. It was once referred to by constitutional lawyer and former president Michel Temer as a " Fourth Branch ". The Constitution of 1988 divides the functions of the Public Prosecutor's Office into three different bodies: the Public Procurator's Office , the Public Defender's Office and the Public Prosecutor's Office itself, each one of them an independent body. In addition to that,

14904-464: The top law schools. There was resistance at first, and Tobias Barreto , a professor of legal philosophy at Recife law school was especially critical of Italian criminologist Lombroso’s theories of anthropological criminology and heritable criminality, and was aware of the incursions of the medical field into law. João Vieira , professor of criminal law in Recife, was the first jurist to support criminological positivism in Brazil, although it took him

15042-672: The trade in Brazil. During the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns (1580–1640), to be active in Spanish America as well, especially trading African slaves. Even though Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles , located much closer to Europe, causing sugar prices to fall. Brazil had coastal cities and towns, which have been considered far less important than colonial settlements in Spanish America, but like Spanish America, urban settlements were important as

15180-687: The trees. Portuguese seafarers in the early fifteenth century, as an extension of the Portuguese Reconquista , began to expand from a small area of the Iberian Peninsula, to seizing the Muslim fortress of Ceuta in North Africa. Its maritime exploration then proceeded down the coast of West Africa and across the Indian Ocean to the south Asian subcontinent, as well as the Atlantic islands off

15318-433: The trial courts, and have the final word on decisions at state level, though their decisions may be overturned by the federal courts. Some states, such as São Paulo and Minas Gerais , used to have a Court of Appeals ( Tribunal de Alçada in Portuguese) which had different jurisdiction. But the 45th Constitutional Amendment to the Brazilian Constitution , in its article four, decreed their extinction in order to simplify

15456-520: The tribunal's decisions did not bind lower courts. The result was a court that is overstretched to the point of mutiny. The Supreme Court received 100,781 cases last year." The Superior Labor Court ( Portuguese : Tribunal Superior do Trabalho , TST), is the highest Brazilian appellate court for labor law issues. Its headquarters are located in Brasilia , near the American Embassy . The origin of

15594-576: The two kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula divided the New World between them in the Treaty of Tordesillas , and in 1500 navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in what is now Brazil and laid claim to it in the name of king Manuel I of Portugal . The Portuguese identified in Portuguese brazilwood as a valuable red dye source and an exploitable product, and attempted to force indigenous groups in Brazil to cut

15732-494: The union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. The Seventeen Provinces obtained independence from Spain in 1581, leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with Dutch ships, including in Brazil. Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast and were important as shippers of sugar, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering

15870-405: The use of neutral experiment and scientific method. This extended to the field of medicine, which also was seen as the arbiter of what is normal or pathological, and especially psychiatry, which became key, as besides being concerned with mental illness asoaddressed the issue of identifying dangerous behavior. Fin de siècle Europe was suffused with images of degeneration and decay , and the idea

16008-459: The victims of this raiding were not white sugar planters but blacks who sold produce grown on their own plots. Other accounts document the actions of members of quilombos to successfully prospect gold and diamonds and to engage in trade with white-controlled cities. While the reasons for fugitive settlement are varied, quilombos were rarely wholly self-sufficient and although inhabitants may have engaged in agricultural pursuits, they depended on

16146-425: The world, and the mens rea , or internal mind state, in particular, intent and that for a crime to occur, both elements must be present. France and many countries whose codes are influenced by French law which do not follow common law nevertheless also use the bipartite system, where they call the two elements the material element ( actus reus ) and the moral element ( mens rea ). The American Model Penal Code

16284-620: The world; it ranked 4th in South America in 2021. In the correctional system, although laws guarantee prisoners a livable amount of space and decent living conditions, in fact prisons are very overcrowded, typically housing two to five times the number of inmates they were designed for. Brazil's legal tradition derives from the civil law of Western Europe, in particular Portuguese law , which in turn comes from Roman law . Unlike other parts of Latin America , Brazil in pre-colonial times before

16422-461: Was Mem de Sá (1557–1573). He was an efficient administrator who managed to defeat the indigenous people and, with the help of the Jesuits, expel the French ( Huguenots and some previous Catholic settlers) from their colony of France Antarctique . As part of this process, his nephew, Estácio de Sá , founded the city of Rio de Janeiro there in 1565. The huge size of Brazil led to the colony being divided in two after 1621 when king Philip II created

16560-440: Was a gradualist, and his increasing understanding and support of the new ideas did not translated into attempts to reform the classical code into a criminological one; his approach followed that of Italian criminologists Ferri and Garofalo, who held that positivist reform would be inevitable, but gradual. He took over revising the Republican code, but chose to find improvements by referring to the old, Imperial code, hoping to increase

16698-464: Was a project of law released in 1962 which heavily influenced penal law in the United States, and came up with a four-part division of mens rea, more than most European countries based on the tripartite system, which distinguish between only two elements, negligence and intent. The German tripartite system, on the other hand, takes a different approach, with a criminal offense having three dimensions:

16836-659: Was a revised version of the Phillipine, and the first printed code anywhere; portions remained in effect after independence in 1822, and it was not fully replaced until Clovis Bevilaqua 's Civil Code of 1917. Changes in earlier, classical views of criminology arrived in Brazil in the nineteenth century, especially after 1870, from the ferment and discourse in Europe in positivist criminology, and fin de siècle views of "degeneration" and supposed "scientific" methods of dealing with deviant elements of society and protecting society from them. Positivist criminology emerged in Europe in

16974-414: Was able to safely enter and leave Brazil in ten days, despite having no means of communication with the indigenous people there, due to the experience Portuguese explorers, such as Gama, had been amassing over the past few decades in interacting with foreign peoples. The Portuguese colonization, around 80 years earlier, of islands off West Africa such as São Tomé and Príncipe , were the first examples of

17112-658: Was an "endemic problem." The realities of being on a frontier that was policed in less than optimal ways fostered the successful escapes of enslaved people. Since the early 17th century there are indications of runaway slaves organizing themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland. These settlements, called mocambos and quilombos , were usually small and relatively close to sugar fields, and attracted not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin. Quilombos were often viewed by Portuguese colonists as "parasitic," relying upon theft of livestock and crops, "extortion, and sporadic raiding" for sustenance. Often,

17250-415: Was an item of dispute for more than two and a half centuries but clearly established the Portuguese in America. It was replaced by the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, and both reflect the present extent of Brazil's coastline. On 22 April 1500, during the reign of king Manuel I , a fleet led by navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil and took possession of the land in the name of the king. Although it

17388-490: Was being reshaped in a more individualistic form. The legal system, and especially criminal law, struggled to keep pace with the whirlwinds sweeping Brazil during the First Republic. The Zeitgeist of the time was the advance of science and cause and effect in understanding phenomena, replacing earlier, more spiritualist views dating to the Middle Ages. Evil had to be understood and explained through observation, calculation, and

17526-476: Was built on a slope by a bay ( All Saints Bay ) and was divided into an upper administrative area and a lower commercial area with a harbour. Tomé de Sousa also visited the captaincies to repair the villages and reorganise their economies. In 1551, the Diocese of São Salvador da Bahia was established in the colony, with its seat in Salvador. The second Governor General, Duarte da Costa (1553–1557), faced conflicts with

17664-541: Was created ( governo-geral ) to administer the area. Some of the first legal documents were the Gift letters for hereditary ownership, and the Foral , a royal decree which called for defining borders and administering the land from the early 16th century, shortly after the Portuguese arrived in Brazil. These continued to be used until independence in 1822. Indigenous practices were ignored, although outside of legal practice they had

17802-452: Was created under the Empire of Brazil , through the decree of 3 July 1822 by Pedro I of Brazil , as Secretary of State for the Affairs of Justice ( Secretaria de Estado dos Negócios da Justiça . Under Article 2 of the Constitution, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security cannot interfere in the judiciary branch. STJ TSE TST STM The Federal government of Brazil is defined by

17940-540: Was first guaranteed in the 1988 Constitution in Article 5 paragraph LIV, and provide that "no one shall be deprived of freedom or of his assets without due process of law". Other rights include the right to challenge evidence and reply to arguments (the adversarial system ); the right of a full defense ( ampla defesa , Art. 5 LV); public availability of all court reasoning and decisions (Art. 5, LX and Art. 93 IX); inadmissability of evidence obtained illegally (Art. 5 LVI);

18078-416: Was heavily influenced by the rise of sugar and gold industries in the colony; from 1600 until 1650, sugar accounted for 95% of Brazil's exports. Slave labor demands varied based on region and on the type of harvest crop. In the Bahia region, where sugar was the main crop, conditions for enslaved peoples were extremely harsh. It was often cheaper for slaveowners to literally work enslaved peoples to death over

18216-515: Was inherent to the economic and social structure of the colony. Years before the North American slave trade got underway, more slaves had been brought to Brazil than would ever reach the Thirteen Colonies . It can be estimated that around 35% of all Africans captured in the Atlantic slave trade were sent to Brazil. The slave trade in Brazil would continue for nearly two hundred years and last

18354-481: Was made without success at the Constitutional Assembly of 1988 to create this court, and again in 1992 as part of the greater push for judiciary reform. It finally became law 12 years later. In May 2009 The Economist called the Supreme Federal Court "the most overburdened court in the world, thanks to a plethora of rights and privileges entrenched in the country's 1988 constitution (...) till recently

18492-550: Was not home to larger civilizations like the Aztec and the Inca in Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese could not place themselves on an established social structure. This, coupled with the fact that tangible material wealth was not found until the 18th century, made the relationship between the Portuguese and the Brazilian colony very different from the relationship of the Spanish to their possessions in

18630-419: Was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies. Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine , olive oil , textiles and luxury goods – the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian slave traders in Africa frequently exchanged cachaça ,

18768-436: Was prevalent. The Bahian quilombo of Buraco de Tatu is described as a "well-organized" village in which people probably practiced monogamy and lived on rectangular-shaped houses that made up neat rows, emulating a plantation senzala . Quilombos were often well fortified, with swampy dikes and false roads leading to "covered traps" and "sharpened stakes," like those used in Africa. The gender imbalance among African slaves

18906-552: Was so inaccessible. However, many African slaves did in fact flee and created their own communities of runaway slaves called quilombos , which often became established political and economic entities. Work on the sugarcane plantations in Northeast Brazil and other areas relied heavily on slave labor , mostly of west African origin. Tijmen vd P. Had a immense role in slave oppression and torture of escaped africans These enslaved people worked to resist slavery in many ways. Some of

19044-473: Was to be the property of Portugal, and everything to the west of it went to Spain. The Tordesillas Meridian divided South America into two parts, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Spaniards. The Treaty of Tordesillas has been called the earliest document in Brazilian history, since it determined that part of South America would be settled by Portugal instead of Spain. The Treaty of Tordesillas

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